The editor’s rundown: consumer regulation unveiled and sector rallies for budget support

The RSH documents published last week also confirm, as broadly anticipated, that the new regulatory function will be reflected in a new system of gradings from C1 to C4. The changes from 1 April mark a significant transition for the English regulator to an approach that will work proactively to drive up standards.

 

Speaking at a sector conference on the morning that the documents landed, Kate Dodsworth, chief of regulatory engagement at the RSH, described this incoming regime as a “really important cultural shift”.

 

She said: “Instead of hanging around like a meerkat, with the very high bar of serious detriment, we can go out from 1 April on a four-year programme for landlords with over 1,000 homes, and inspect and ask for the evidence that landlords have that homes are safe, they’re a good quality; [that] they know what their homes are like, they understand the condition; [and] they have a range of means for hearing from tenants.”

 

Addressing delegates at the National Housing Federation (NHF) Resident Engagement and Customer Experience Conference, Ms Dodsworth also emphasised that many providers will find themselves with less than top consumer grades. “Those who have heard me speak in the last year will have heard me say that I don’t think that there are going to be lots of landlords who are in that C1 category.”

 

But she also drew attention to a change in language in how the regulator thinks about performance in the consumer space. “We won’t be talking now about consumer breaches that are very binary, it’s right or it’s wrong. We will be talking about the extension from C1 to C4.

 

“We’ll be talking about serious failings, and [for] landlords who aren’t able and willing to put things right for their tenants, we have a whole range of powers that we will be able to use.”

 

Ms Dodsworth highlighted the cultural shifts needed in landlords, too. Referring to responses to the regulator’s request for information on damp and mould, sent out in November 2022, Ms Dodsworth said that the better responses were those that showed providers understood who was living behind the front door of their homes, what their tenants’ needs were, and “married that up with the quantitative evidence of the condition of homes”.

 

“That understanding of data, that understanding of culture, that setting a culture where people can raise problems quickly, and get to the solution faster, rather than burying bad news is going to be really important,” she said.  

 

“But for me, the most important cultural shift here is the accountability. Boards, lead members in local authorities, are accountable for the poor performance of their landlords and need to now give us evidence of those outcomes against the consumer standard.”

 

Focus on existing homes, and the investment required into them, has continued to be a key feature of news and announcements in the past month.

 

The latest quarterly survey of registered providers, published on Tuesday (5 March) marked another record low for the sector’s interest cover, driven by repairs and maintenance spend in the quarter of £2bn.

 

Three weeks earlier, the Affordable Homes Guarantee Scheme opened up its government-backed loans for use, for the first time, on existing stock investment – rather than simply funding new homes. The scheme, which will still require an element of new homes delivery from borrowers, also gained from a previously trailed £3bn top-up from government, despite around £2bn of guarantees remaining unused in the existing scheme, meaning that a total of £5bn is now available.

 

Individual providers also continued to highlight the impact that necessary investment in homes is having on their finances. In a trading update, large Midlands housing association Platform revealed that its surplus had fallen £6m in the first nine months of the year, as it ramped up investment in existing homes by a third.

 

Elizabeth Froude, chief executive of Platform, flagged the potential for incoming regulation to raise costs further at the 48,000-home provider. This includes the new time limits for investigating and beginning repairs under the amendment to the Social Housing (Regulation) Act known as Awaab’s Law, on which the government has been consulting.

Ms Froude said: “The introduction of Awaab’s Law is anticipated to add further costs as the current scope in consultation is much wider than damp and mould and will potentially add further operational costs to our business.

 

“As has always been the case, we continue to do all we can to resolve cases as quickly as possible, to ensure our residents’ safety and well-being.”

 

At the same time, providers have urged the government to support the delivery of thousands of new social homes by ramping up funding. In a letter to housing secretary Michael Gove, the G15 group of London’s largest associations, alongside Centre for London, urged government to see housing as “essential infrastructure”, and to fund it accordingly.

 

It is a call echoed by Legal & General Capital’s managing director for housing. In a comment piece for Social Housing last month, Simon Century argued for the need to reset current thinking on housing and the role it plays, to view housing as the “heart and soul of UK infrastructure”.  

 

“This new perspective could also catalyse the right thinking and decision-making to dial up housebuilding in the UK at the scale and speed needed to deliver thousands more necessary homes across all tenures, year on year,” Mr Century wrote.

 

Making their own case to government for the need to invest in new homes, the NHF and charity Shelter set out the findings of new research, that building just one year’s worth of the 90,000 homes seen as being required annually to meet housing need would add more than £50bn to the economy. This would include £7bn of ‘direct benefits’ to the exchequer, the report carried out by the Centre for Economics and Business Research, found.

 

It comes as Social Housing’s special report this month finds that registered providers’ impairments reached a record high over the last full year, as economic challenges such as cost inflation and contractor failure took their toll.

 

Housing trade bodies have been making the case for increased investment to deal with the current economic and operating challenges, along with much-needed policy certainty, in advance of the chancellor’s Spring Budget, taking place today.

 

This has included calls from the G15 for a return to rent convergence, along with a 10-year index-linked settlement. Among its asks, the group also called for welfare reform to support its customers during the ongoing cost of living crisis.

 

On that theme, our latest feature explores the ways in which registered providers have been adapting their approaches to support tenants facing financial exclusion. With common issues including a lack of access to suitable financial products, fuel poverty, debt, low or no savings, and low household income, Rhiannon Curry explores how associations are tailoring their support services to meet a range of challenges.

 

We will, naturally, be diving into all of these themes at our upcoming Social Housing Finance Conference, taking place on 8 May.

 

Whether it’s our breakfast briefing focusing on tenancy sustainment in practice, plenary sessions exploring how to raise providers’ status as key partners to government, or our dedicated streams on ESG and procurement, this year’s event is designed to enable you to build a tailored programme to meet your learning, knowledge-sharing and networking needs. I hope to see you there.

 

Sarah Williams, editor, Social Housing